Homeless Shelter Privacy Debated

The city's homeless shelters are emerging as a battleground in the conflict between personal privacy rights and the authority of city police to keep track of registered sex offenders.

Hartford police say that 10 percent of the state's 5,000 registered sex offenders make their homes in Hartford. Of that number — currently 502 — some 11 percent are staying in shelters.

One of those residents, Leslie Williams, was listed at the Stewart B. McKinney shelter on Huyshope Avenue when authorities say he broke into the home of a New Britain woman over the weekend, shot her and abducted and then killed her friend.

City police are championing an amendment to the state offender registry act that would give them more authority to monitor the movements of sex offenders who list shelters as their addresses. They say they are often blocked by shelter officials from doing compliance checks to ensure residency.

Hartford police Lt. Mark Tedeschi doesn't know for sure if the amendment to the bill now before the Senate could have prevented an incident such as the one in New Britain, but he would like to get the chance to find out.

Tedeschi, commander of the department's juvenile investigative division and its sex offender registry unit, is at the forefront of support for the proposed amendment to Senate Bill 35, which would allow police officers to enter Hartford shelters to determine if registered sex offenders are actually residing there and to make contact with them.

"[Registered sex offender] Leslie Williams would have been one of them," Tedeschi said Tuesday. "It's a deterrent factor. It certainly wouldn't have hurt."

Tedeschi said that since the weekend tragedy, several legislators have called him to ask about the amendment.

According to Hartford police there are 56 registered sex offenders living in the city's 10 homeless, emergency and other shelters, and officers are not entitled to enter them to verify the individuals' whereabouts unless they obtain search warrants.

"They believe it's a confidentiality issue," Tedeschi said.

The amendment to the bill would require employees of shelters to provide police with information about sex offenders living there and prohibit the employees from withholding or providing false information, or obstructing an investigation into the whereabouts of sex offenders.

Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts said Tuesday that the goal is to keep city residents safe and provide a sense of structure for sex offenders living in shelters.

"There is minimal to no supervision [of sex offenders in shelters]," Roberts said. "Leslie Williams could go in and disappear for days at a time."

State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R- Waterbury, assistant minority leader, said Wednesday that he was not aware of the specific language in the amendment, but supported its intent as presented to him by Tedeschi.

Attempts to reach board members and directors at several of the city's shelters Tuesday were unsuccessful.